What makes The Catcher in the Rye and The Bell Jar both such magnificent and well written books? One might say that it’s because people can learn from the abundance of themes each book presents. The themes that most stood out in each of these books are “The Search for Identity”,”The Melting Pot”, and “The American Dream”. Each of these books provided much detail and provided much knowledge about these themes. These books, written by J.D. Salinger, and Sylvia Plath, each provide many examples and quotes and explains each theme to its fullest ability and allow readers to comprehend the lessons. Each book explains thoroughly how the protagonists from The Catcher in the Rye and The Bell Jar both have trouble looking for and finding out their…show more content… The American Dream is the belief that one can reach success and prosperity in life as long as the have an equal and fair chance of obtaining their goals. In the Catcher in the Rye, Holden does not try in school and even wrote on one of his paper to his teacher that “It is alright with me if you flunk me”(Salinger 17). He does not even try to achieve his dream because he hates the American dream. He believes that phonies try and achieve their dreams when it’s just pointless and not really worth doing. Another example is when the protagonist in The Bell Jar Esther Greenwood realizes the minute she steps into New York that her American dream is unattainable. “I knew something was wrong with me that summer ...all the little successes I'd totted up so happily at college fizzled to nothing outside the slick marble and plate-glass fronts along Madison Avenue”(Plath 2). The New York environment caused her to realize that her dream was unable to be reached. In the cases of both books the American dream was attainable, however, the characters in each book were either not willing to reach their dream or they did not realize their dream was attainable until later